Book description: Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed. In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women – mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends – view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.

I can’t say enough about this book. I kept sending texts to my fellow L&TC Book Club girls as I listened to the audiobook laughing, joking, and loving it. I’m so glad this was one of the books I chose to listen to instead of read. This book is a carefully woven patchwork quilt full of rich character development tying each of the three main character’s lifes to one another, for better, or for worse. If you just read this book, you may miss the added bonus of tone, emphasis and emotion that the three narrators added to the story with their different voices in the audiobook. If you’re going to start listening to books on your iPod, I recommend The Help be the first! Stockett does an amazing job at really separating the characters while keeping them bound to one another throughout the entire story’s plotline. I found myself laughing out loud many times, especially to the scene at the event with the chocolate pie!

Skeeter by far was my favorite character. I love her tenderness. Although she was a bit of an outcast, I appreciated her plight. As a young white woman growing up in the south in 1962, she took gutsy chances by doing what she did. She stood up for not just women’s rights, but human rights. She never let the debutante Ms. Hilly get the best of her, or get in her way for anything. Ms. Celia’s character was my second favorite. I loved how she really didn’t “need” Minnie, but she needed a friend. Ms. Celia didn’t treat Minnie like the rest of the “housewives” treated their “help”. She treated her with respect, like an equal. I also love how the title of this book really digs deeper than just the help the women provided in the home. We all need help. Sometimes, the help we need is someone pushing us. Someone pushing us to shift our focus a bit, regardless of what we’re told by society is “right” or “the way it is”, and challenge us to reach beyond the norm. We can help each other see what’s really important in life. Start valuing others and their individual contributions to our lives rather than their social status.
I recommend everyone read this book!!